there's likely to be voter backlash from this. >> it's a great point. you're going to notice whether you're paying more taxes or not. thank you both. >> thank you. that is all in for this evening, good night. live from los angeles tonight. president trump and republican leaders in congress won some very important votes yesterday but president trump doesn't seem to want voters thinking about that tonight. he doesn't want trump voters thinking about it. he doesn't want democratic voters thinking about it. he doesn't want independents thinking about it because votes that donald trump won in congress yesterday hurt all of those voters. the trump tax cuts that passed the house of representatives and the senate finance committee are the worst pieces of tax legislation that have ever passed the house of representatives and the senate finance committee. the worst. but the full senate hasn't voted on the bill yet. and donald trump seems to

believe that the more voters know about the tax bill the more trouble the bill will face, especially in the senate which is why last night that the hour when the senate finance committee was voting on the tax bill president trump dramatically changed the subject to something he was sure the news media would prefer to talk about. the president is so desperate to turn voter attention away from what's actually in the tax bill that he changed the subject to his own history of sexual assault. he knew that's what he was doing when he sent out two tweets at this hour last night attacking senator al franken. he knew everyone would point out the hypocrisy of trump attacking franken and not saying a word about roy moore and, of course, the hypocrisy of donald trump of all people attacking anyone

about sexual matters after trump himself was caught on tape confessing and bragging about sexual assault. donald trump knew exactly what his tweets last night were going to do to the coverage of the tax bill an we will get to the news about al franken and roy moore and donald trump's own history of sexual assault later in this program after we begin with the worst piece of tax legislation written in congress since the federal income tax was invented in 1913. tax cuts are the easiest thing to pass in congress. the easiest thing. republican tax cut bills always pass very, very easily and they pass with democratic votes. they are genuine bipartisan votes. 20% of the votes in the senate

for the bush tax cuts came from democrats, 12 democrats in the senate voted for the bush tax cuts and 1 republican voted against them. john mccain. a true bipartisan vote. some of the democrats who have voted for republican tax cuts in the house and in the senate in the past have had to overcome some qualms about increasing the deficit and then unfair distribution of the tax cut that is favored the rich, but in the end voting for tax cuts was politically irresistible to them and so it is a profound statement about just how outrageous and indefensible the republican tax cuts are that exactly zero democrats in the house of representatives voted for the tax cut bill. zero. and exactly zero democrats on the senate finance committee voted for these senate version of the bill. not one democratic senator.

in the house of representatives, 13 republicans voted against the bill because it hurts their states very badly by reducing the deductibility of state and local taxes. the senate bill is even worse. it completely eliminates the deductibility of state and local taxes and therefore steeply increases taxes in states with higher than average property taxes and state income taxes and it is no coincidence that the states most burdened by this tax increase are the wealthier states in the country that finance much more of the federal government's activities than the other states and the states -- these are the state that is routinely vote for democrats. including democratic candidates for president. this is the first time that the personal income tax code has been used by a political party to punish the voters and taxpayers of the other political

party. this is a politically vindictive tax bill. it literally forces voters to pay higher taxes because they vote for democrats. and both the house and the senate version of the bill force middle class voters, including trump middle class voters, in all states to pay higher taxes when the bill is fully fazed in. americans earning less than $75,000 would face substantial tax increases and this is exactly the opposite of what the president promised when he was campaigning. >> we will massively cut taxes for the middle class, the forgotten people. the forgotten men and women of this country who built our country.

we will massively lower taxes. it's in our plan. we will save and protect social security and medicare. hillary's going to cut your social security and cut your medicare benefits. we will massively cut taxes for the middle class. tax relief will be concentrated on the working and middle class taxpayer. they will receive the biggest benefit and it won't even be close. >> in fact, this tax bill is the single biggest transfer of wealth to the richest americans in the history of american government. >> who benefits from your tax plan? >> i don't benefit. i don't benefit. in fact, very, very strongly as you see there's no -- there's -- i think there's very little benefit for people of wealth. >> joining us now, joyce reid, msnbc national correspondent and the host of "a.m. joy weekends" here on msnbc and with us bruce

bartlett, former deputy assistant secretary of the treasure under george h.w. bush and author of "the truth matters." joy, there's donald trump telling us he doesn't benefit from -- come on. can i finish the question, joy, without -- without mocking? >> sorry. >> he does not benefit from this tax bill an tries say that with a straight face. every report tells us that the trump family is on the way to a billion dollars tax free in this maybe or maybe less. maybe more. depending on how rich he really is. >> you know, yeah. i'm sorry for the laughter. come on. i mean, in the sense donald trump cannot leave money to himself he doesn't benefit from the estate tax repeal but hopefully tiffany is included and leave tax free the entire estate whatever it's worth to his children and every other billionaire and if you think about donald trump the way that

his businesses operate, there's hundreds of individual llcs. pass through income and also magically gets a big tax cut. there's a big tax break for private jets. the things that people like donald trump utilize are all subject to a tax cut and as you said the bill explicitly punishes the states that didn't vote for him and others open the door republicans and honest and saying, yeah, they can't guarantee that middle class people won't pay more and we all have to pay more because we need to lower the corporate tax rate permanently. everybody else's is temporary. you have been had. >> and, joy, i as -- i do the worst job of keeping a straight face when talking about donald trump's life. i just wanted to see what it felt like to see if we could possibly do it straight. >> can't be done. >> it is extraordinary. bruce bartlett, the president, we heard him talking in the

campaign clips of the forgotten people, the forgotten men and women of this country. the middle class and he's going to massively lower their taxes. that's what he said in the campaign. >> well, it's true that the middle class is suffering but it's not suffering from over taxation. taxes on a family of a median income about as low as they have been in the history of the america. they need higher wages and there's absolutely nothing in this legislation that is going to cause that to happen. the report that the white house put out saying that cutting the corporate tax rate will magically lead to higher wages is just complete and total nonsense. all tough do is go to bls.gov, look up what happened to wages the last time we cut the corporate tax rate in 1986. we lowered it from 46% to 34%.

a big reduction. wages fell for ten years after that legislation. >> and, bruce, that's president reagan's corporate tax rate cut. >> that's right. >> that was the rate that he thought was reasonable under the circumstances and the chomss you make in tax reform. joy reid, i'm here in california and i was talking to people deeply involved in the politics of sacramento when they were watching these house republicans from california most of them vote for this bill which hurts california very badly. and these are political types who just were so eager to take them on in the next congressional election. but california taxpayers are going to get hurt first. >> yeah, absolutely. california, new york where i'm today and where i live. california republicans are something of an endangered species and amazing to me that

anybody when's elected to the house in california particularly in those districts, i think more than 11 of them that hillary clinton actually won outright and the other that is were close and even in the redder districts in california, no blow youths or republicans in california, so they're going to have a big problem and they have to defend the fact that they literally raised taxes on -- i read one analysis saying 1 in 11 taxpayers will have the tax increase come by 2018. so by the time we're voting to, you know, re-elect the entire house of representatives in 2018 almost 1 in 10 taxpayers will have already seen the tax increase and hit hardest in places where republicans are already vulnerable like california and new york, places like connecticut. so, you know, once again, donald trump has done his party's no favors coming to trying to get their jobs back next year. >> we have worked on tax legislation moving through the congress, and i'm looking at this historically and i don't see anything like it.

i'd like to get your rice tore call perspective on it. >> well, i think the most extraordinary thing about this legislation is the undo haste through which they're ramming this through and it proves the point you were making earlier they don't want anybody to know what's in the legislation because it's terrible legislation. trump lies about it. the secretary of the treasury lies about it. the chairman of the senate finance committee lies about it. they just keep saying, oh, this is great for the middle class and it's not. it's only great if you're extremely wealthy and then it's really wonderful. they don't want people to know that. and they also don't want people to know about the inevitable spending cuts that are going to be caused by this legislation. the second the ink is dry something called pay go takes effect and they begin to sequester $150 billion worth of spending in the current fiscal year of which at least 25

billion is going to come out of medicare. >> uh-huh. >> joy, there's a lot of details to get into in the bills and we will but the main point i wanted to make tonight is my point is i don't believe there's been a worst piece of tax legislation written and advanced and voted on in congress. there's been some crazy ideas that were introduced as bills that never got anywhere. but here it is. it's gotten through the house of remittives, now a version gotten through the senate finance committee and as far as i'm concerned takes the place as the worst. there's no cohesive tax theory to what this is. it isn't tax reform. it's not describable as anything but a very peculiar set of tax cuts that are targeted in every way possible at the rich. >> yeah. i mean, you have to remember that, you know, the income tax amendment to the constitution didn't exist in the guilded age and no possible way to have been worst tax legislation. you know, the one thing that's

happened i think that's sort of helpful to the discourse is that republicans have lost this sort of phony language of helping the middle class. they're saying it now because they have to add that because they have to run television commercials for 2018 but you have people like mulvaney and coen open about the fact that this is going to raise taxes on the middle class. yes, we feel it's right to raise taxes on lower income people to do this tax cut for the very rich an for corporations. the sort of i'm randy language is back and people are open and admission to go after social security disability insurance and trump voters are receiving for nursing homes for parents. they have admitted to go back and do a premium support switch to medicare, the dream of paul ryan. and they're being very open. talking to republican strategists, and i have, they're open and blunt in saying our donors are demanding that we do this big tax cut and if we don't do it they won't donate to us anymore.

they're doing this for the very wealthy donors and literally no one else. >> quick last word, bruce, about the debt. we remember president trump campaigning vehemently against the national debt and he was going to bring it down. what does this do to the national debt? >> well, it increases it by $1.5 trillion. it's going to increase the national debt as a share of gdp more than 50%. and this absolutely guarantees that the second the legislation's passed all the republicans are going to start talking about how we have to have deficit ru duction and already talking about this and they plan to do to the democrats what happened to them in 1993 which you remember very well that led ultimately to the republicans taking control of congress. they want to tie the deficit around the democrats' necks and make them vote for very unpopular deficit reduction legislation that was -- when the deficits are caused by the

republicans. >> bruce bartlett, thank you for joining us tonight. joy reid, please stay with us. coming up, a new nbc news report reveals that jared kushner had yet another contact with russians that had not been revealed until now. and once again, donald trump jr. is also involved. and later, the governor of alabama said she has no reason to doubt roy moore's accusers and she is still going to vote for roy moore. when you have a cold

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tonight nbc news reports jared kushner failed to disclose what lawmakers called a russian back door overture and dinner invite involving a banker who has been accused of links to russian organized crime. the banker is alexander torsion, a close ally of vladimir putin. e-mails that made the way to jared kushner suggest he wanted to meet with the high level trump campaign official at the national rifle association convention in may 2016 and may have had a message for donald trump from vladimir putin. nbc news was told that kushner rebuffed the claim and then torsion said he dined with donald trump jr. on the sidelines of the nra convention. joining us now, ken delanian who broke this story.

ken, what's the significance of these new e-mails? >> good evening, lawrence. well, yesterday the senate judiciary committee admonished jared kushner in a letter saying he and the lawyers did not turn over significant documents in the investigations and one thing to mention was a russian back door overture and didn't explain what it was and my colleague and i learned today it was, in fact, e-mail chain from this russian named alexander torsion, a deputy governor of the russian central bank, a former senator and accused of spanish prosecutors with ties to russian organized crime and an e-mail chain made the way to jared kushner where he requested a meeting and a message of vladimir putin to donald trump. jared kushner's lawyer said that kushner's response to this e-mail was, quote, pass on this. a lot of people come claiming to carry messages, very few we're

able to verify, for now i think we decline such meetings. so kushner declines it but then somehow and it's not clear how this same alexander torsion tells bloomberg news he has dinner with donald trump jr. on the sidelines of the national rifle association convention in may 2016 and congressional investigators trying to figure out what was said, what was the nature of it. and the reason kushner's under fire is because he failed to disclose that this overture was made and made the way to him and investigators are asking questions about why he and his lawyers failed to turn over the documents, lawrence. >> let's remember the collusion under investigation, the possible collusion is a two-way street. the trump campaign colluding with russian government and anything indicates a willingness on the russian side to engage in this kind of activity is evidence that would enter into that theory. i want to read "the new york times" reporting on this tonight

saying the subject line of the e-mail turned over to senate investigators read, quote, russian back door overture and dinner invite end quote according to one person who has seen the message. and so, so, ken, i can imagine the congressional investigators when they're coming across material like this, it is just so starkly self expressive and admitting what it is. >> yes. this is just a latest example of sort of senior russians with ties to vladimir putin circling around this campaign, trying to infiltrate, meetings with senior officials and an example of where a senior official jared kushner did not fully come clean about it. the other thing that's important here, lawrence, is sort of unrelated to this but involving jared kushner is that he told both congressional committees he testified that he did not recall -- actually he said he was not aware of any campaign contacts of wikileaks and

learned this week, in fact, don jr. was in twitter communication with wikileaks, forwarded an e-mail about that to jared kushner and he forwarded that e-mail on to hope hicks. the lawyer confirmed that in the same letter i just read to you and really important because it has people in congress wanting jared kushner to come back and testify and say why he didn't remember something and knew about and forward an e-mail about and important that the campaign was in communication with wikileaks obviously because wikileaks was in receipt of those hacked e-mails that russian intelligence got from the democrats, lawrence. >> and then, of course, there was donald trump's very open and public communication with wikileaks from the campaign stage saying i love wikileaks and asking them for help publicly. thank you very much for joining us with the breaking news report tonight. >> you bet, lawrence. nbc news also reports tonight that one of the people who helped arrange the trump tower meeting with russians during the campaign is ready to

meet with responsibly counsel robert mueller's office according to several people familiar with the matter, rob goldstone has been living in bangkok, thailand, and communicating with mueller's office through his lawyers. goldstone's new york lawyer g. robert gauge declined to comment other than to say nothing is presently scheduled. however, sources close to goldstone and familiar with the investigation say they expect he will travel to the united states at some point in the near future as one of them put it. we're joined by max boot, a senior fellow for national security sud city bs at the country krill on foreign relations and a former adviser of the mccain, romney and rubio campaigns and betsy woodruff, a politics reporter for "the daily beast."

max, here we have jared kushner having said he knew nothing about contact of wikileaks. here's an e-mail showing him of clearly aware of it to the point where he's forwarding an e-mail about contact with wikileaks. >> right. i mean, lawrence, it seems just like pretty much every day another lie from the trump folks about their connections with russia exposed. right? have they ever told the truth, the slightest sense about this? why are they lying? keep in mind the bigger picture, too, which is that it was only a few days ago that donald trump himself was in vietnam meeting with vladimir putin and what did he do after the meeting with putin? said putin denies having hacked the dnc and i believe him and the professionals who run the american intelligence community a bunch of political hacks saying the russians hacked so, you know, donald trump himself is lending credence to the notion of collusion and then we're seeing evidence of that collusion emerge almost every single day. >> and, betsy, here's jared kushner who has to revise his testimony in effect sequentially. it's almost one of the most reliable things in the

investigation is that the jared kushner statement on "x" will be different a month from now. >> and on top of that, we have now seen both the republican and the top democrat on the senate judiciary committee actually publicly call out jared kushner. just this past week for failure to turn over documents they asked for related to communications of the trump campaign and wikileaks or related to wikileaks. that's really important because we're seeing not just a lot of general frustration directed at jared kushner over his failure to reveal certain communications and certain contacts with folk who is are linked to the russian government and chuck grassley, one of the most powerful republican senators actually indicate or suggest that he thinks jared kushner one of the president's top advisers hasn't been entirely honest with him. this criticism that kushner is

getting when it comes to his honesty and forthrightness is not a partisan criticism. coming from both sides and that's an incredibly important development that we have seen play out this week and that i think is going to have ramifications for quite sometime going forward. >> and, max boot, real criminal liability here for jared kushner because he apparently was under oath saying that he was not familiar with any attempts by wikileaks to contact the campaign. now they have an e-mail about wikileaks and the campaign that he forwarded so you can't forward an e-mail without physically forwarding the e-mail. and so, he's got that. he's also got other possible criminal liabilities on the disclosures, the disclosure forms to do for the security clearance. it would seem that he could be a very serious pressure point for the special prosecutor. >> absolutely. along with donald trump jr. who's also neck deep in all this

because he was also at the center of these various contacts with the russians and we have already seen the way mueller like any engs appearanced prosecutor goes after possible perjury or perhaps lying to federal investigators easy to nail someone like george papadopoulos and going after kushner, a donald trump jr. and know where that leads in the end and i think donald trump knows where that leads and we have to be concerned as the investigation moves forward that trump is going to think about trying to get rid of mueller. >> betsy, we have reports indicating tonight mueller is sending range of subpoenas to the trump campaign. and that means, of course, that any destruction or misuse of anything that's under subpoena is in and of itself a crime. >> and it's also an important new report going against what the public statements from folks in the white house and close to

the white house have been suggesting. people close to the president and close to the campaign have been saying that publicly that they this investigation is going to clear the president's name, that they think they're trying to speed it up and get things done by thanksgiving according to an attorney working with the president because they think there's nothing to see here. the fact that mueller subpoenaed the trump campaign indicates that the trump campaign might potentially be in possession of documents that they failed to turn over to mueller's team. this suggests that the sunny view of the investigation we have been hearing publicly doesn't line up necessarily with what's actually going on behind closed doors. >> betsy and max, thank you both for joining us tonight. really appreciate it. >> sure thing. coming up, the sexual harassment and misconduct allegations against roy moore, donald trump and al franken. coaching means making tough choices.

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when roy moore was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney he was reportedly constantly trying to date teenage girls who were at least 14 years younger than he was and one who was only 14 years old. and when he was 38 years old roy moore actually succeeded in marrying a woman who was 14 years younger. and today, she said this. >> so let me set the record straight. even after all the attacks against me, against my family, against the foundation, and now

against my husband, he will not step down. >> the republican governor of alabama announced today that she will vote for roy moore in the special election on december 12 and then she was immediately asked this question. >> do you believe any of the women that have brought accusations against roy moore? >> i certainly have no reason to disbelieve any of them. >> the republican governor was not asked if she believes the more than a dozen women who publicly accused donald trump of sexual harassment and sexual assault last year. but that question did come up at the white house today in the aftermath of president trump's twitter attacks on al franken. >> is it fair to investigate al

franken and the allegation made by his accuser is it also fair to investigate this president and the allegations of sexual misconduct made against him by more than a dozen women? >> look. i think that this was covered pretty extensively during the campaign. we addressed that then. the american people i think spoke very loud and clear electing this president. >> how's this different? >> i think in one case specifically senator franken admitted wrongdoing and the president hasn't. that's a clear distinction. >> of course, that is not true. the president did admit wrongdoing and in that admission he expressed no regret as senator franken has. donald trump actually bragged about his favorite techniques of sexual assault when he was admitting to sexual assault. >> use some tic-tacs in case i start kissing her. i'm automatically attracted -- i start kissing them. just magnet. just kiss.

and when you're a star, they let you do it. you can do anything. >> whatever you want. >> grab them by the [ bleep ]. do anything. >> senator al franken apologized to leeann tweeden after she accused him of aggressively kissing her during a rehearsal of a comedy sketch in 2006 and posing for this picture while she was asleep on a military aircraft traveling back from a uso tour of the middle east in 2006 two years before al franken ran for senate. today, leeann tweeden appeared on "the view" where she read a handwritten letter she had just received from al franken. >> it says, dear leeann, i want to apologize to you personally. i don't know what was in my head when i took that picture, that doesn't matter. i understand why you could feel violated by that photo. i remember that rehearsal differently but what's important is the impact it had on you and you felt violated by my actions and for that i apologize. i have tremendous respect for your work for the uso and

ashamed my actions ruined that experience for you. i'm so sorry. sincere sli al frank. >> she also said that. >> i wasn't calling for resignation or career to end. i didn't want any of that. i just wanted to shine the light and stand on the shoulders of these other women to go, this is not right. he has fessed up to it and he apologized and i sincerely think that he really -- i think he took in and realized, man, that he looks at it and says i'm disgusted by my actions. >> today we heard from women who have worked with al franken in the senate and as well as one woman who worked with him at "saturday night live." we'll bring you what they have to say next and we'll be joined by joy reid and maria teresa cue mar. hello this is joey, walmart online grocery.

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today several former senate and campaign staffers who worked for senator al franken released this statement. many of us spent years working for senator franken in minnesota and washington and our time working for the senator he treated with us the utmost respect, he valued our work and our opinions and was a champion for women both in the legislation supported and promoting women to leadership roles in the offices. casey aiden wines bury serving as a chief of staff from 2011 to 2015 released this statement. in the eight years i have known al franken including four as his

senate chief of staff, he has always worked hard to create a respectful environment for his staff. the inappropriate behavior reported today does not live up to the values i know he holds. and i am glad he has apologized. i have worked in government and politics for two decades and never seen anyone take public service more seriously or care more deeply about his responsibility to the constituents and the country he serves. sarah payly was 21 years old when she was hired as a writer at "saturday night live" in 1979. today sarah payly said this about al franken. when i was in my early 20s i worked with al franken at saturday night live and the new show. in an atmosphere that was rife with crude male behavior, al never made me feel uncomfortable. we became friends in part because he did not engage in the macho harassing behavior that

was the standard in the workplace in the late 1970s and '80s. joining us now, maria teresa kumar and back with us joy reid. and, joy, i just wanted to get your assessment of this entire range of discussion that we have been dealing with here now at the end of the week. >> yeah. you know, lawrence, i think it's really important that you mention the year that the al franken incident took place. it was 2006. this is a year after donald trump said to billy bush that as a celebrity he just starts kissing beautiful women he likes and that he feels that he can grab them by the -- you know what he said after that. it's important i think to make that -- put that in context as donald trump is attacking al franken for exactly the behavior he bragged about to billy bush literally a year before al franken kissed this woman without her consent and took the stupid picture apparently at the

time he thought was funny and it was vulgar and the gross and the difference is not just the ages, al franken manned up, admitted he did wrong and apologized to miss tweeden and what he should do and we are seeing this constriction of the boundaries of what celebrity men and even men just with power and no celebrity have felt forever. that they could do. as a woman you know men with money or power start thinking their boundaries much wider, if they're interested in a woman they can do anything. donald trump voiced that literally in the access hollywood video. i'm a celebrity. therefore, if i want that woman, i can just kiss her. if i want the see the teenages naked, i'm the head of the pageant and going to look at them naked. nothing they can do. mistreating women as an object that's only there for male desire. al franken was also somebody who was guilty of doing that and unlike donald trump, an ability to evolve and admit that was gross and wrong and apologize. can you imagine how different the world would be if donald

trump president of the united states was man enough to apologize and to admit the wrongdoing that more than a dozen women have accused him of? but he isn't that guy. he isn't capable of it. >> marie teresa, your reaction to where the stories stand tonight? >> i think that was a mike drop job by joy reid. not only did he apologize to the victim, i crossed the line, i didn't mean to, he called an ethics investigation on himself saying come and actually -- i actually invite my colleagues to scrutinize my past making sure i'm actually fit to serve in this office. donald trump has not done any of that. not only by any means necessary but he also has not gone through the same scrutiny and talked about roy moore who right now has allegations against him from a 14-year-old -- from a woman that was -- when she was 14 years old groped by him. the inaccuracies of donald trump and shine the light only on al franken and not on the alabama

senate -- person running for senate of alabama is not only unfair and also demonstrates what his priorities are and doesn't want to get involved in those waters because it reflects too closely to home. >> and of course, we will never forget which politician said no one has more respect for women than i do. that, of course, was donald trump. >> right. >> and he was saying that when he was also promising to sue every one of the women who during the campaign accused him of some kind of sexual harassment or assault and he called all of them liars, joy. that was his word for them. we didn't hear anything like that from al franken. >> right. i think, you know, as embarrassing as this is for al franken, a moment for him, it's almost perfect this he's the guy this happened to to in this sense. donald trump and al franken are analogous in terms of entry in

politics. al franken was famous famous. not famous calling "the new york post" and trying to get himself on page six because he was just some rich guy desperate in the news. he was famous famous on "saturday night live," made movies. by the time it happened in 2006, he had best selling books including one that bill o'reilly tried to sue him for. he was on air america radio. a radio star for people on the left who are listening to the liberal radio network. he was a celebrity. and he was acting in the way that too many people with that kind of fame behave and the celebrity propelled him into politics. he was elected in part because he was famous. they're very analogous men but the difference is when you're a man if you're trying to be a man and man up in in that sense of the word, when you are wrong, when you have committed wrong against someone else, the thing to do, if you're a christian, let's say, i don't know what his religion is, you admit it. donald trump isn't capable of

doing that. so i mean, he isn't half as capable or a tenth of al franken is and i'll stop. >> that will have to be the last word on it tonight. thank you both very much for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. coming up, the events that started the political world that we have today. baa baa black sheep, have you any wool? no sir, no sir, some nincompoop stole all my wool sweaters, smart tv and gaming system. luckily, the geico insurance agency recently helped baa baa with renters insurance. everything stolen was replaced. and the hooligan who lives down the lane was caught selling the stolen goods online. visit geico.com and see how easy it is to switch and save on renters insurance. coaching means making tough choices. jim! you're in! but when you have high blood pressure and need cold medicine that works fast, the choice is simple.

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some of you may have noticed that i missed the last few nights of this show because i've

been meeting "last word" viewers around the country while talking about my new book, "playing with fire." here's a highlight reel of some of the tv talk about this book. >> you have a book here called "playing with fire," it's about the campaign of 1968. what today can we learn about the transformation of our politics, anything here we can learn about today's politics? >> we can see all of the precedents that occurred in 1968, which is kind of where our modern politics began, for what we saw in the last campaign. >> your book about '68 particularly on the democratic side is the only other thing that has made me feel, oh, right, we've done this before as a country, we've been this overwhelmed. >> we had a resistance this big before in 1968, against both the johnson presidency and following, against the nixon presidency. it was an anti-war resistance.

what was at stake was nothing other than life and death. everyone over 18, every male had to have his draft card in his pocket. >> you can learn about watergate by learning about what richard nixon did, but if you really want to learn about watergate, learn what the country was like and what was going on in the country at the time watergate happened which allowed watergate to end the way it did. >> and there is a little bit of collusion in the victory at the end, richard nixon used collusion with a foreign government, the south vietnamese, in order to win in the end. >> when you look back at this, do you think our country has fully healed itself from this year of division? >> no, because this is where the divisions got locked into cement. >> roger ailes was a 27-year-old executive producer, which is kind of amazing, of mike douglas' talk show at the time. he meets richard nixon at that talk show. nixon says, why am i doing a

silly talk show like this? ailes gets mad at him and gives him a big lecture about tv and how wrong nixon has been about tv. nixon loves it and he pulls ailes into his presidential campaign. ailes helps nixon get elected, he creates fox news, fox news supports i've republican candidate everywhere. without fox news holding donald trump up through every valley he went through during that campaign, he would not be president tonight. without fox news and roger ailes, we would have a different president. >> in san francisco i got a request for a book signature from one of the youngest members of the "last word" audience, a 9-year-old boy. in los angeles, conan o'brien did us the honor of serving as a moderator for a book discussion.

conan elevated the discussion with his own distinctive reading of presidential history and got more laughs than any of my previous book audiences enjoyed. conan was extraordinary, he has much more knowledge of history than i do. he was a history major in college. i would go on and on about how brilliant and masterful conan was last night. tonight's last word is next. every day, on every street, in every town, across america. small businesses show their love to you. with some friendly advice, a genuine smile and a warm welcome they make your town... well, your town. that's why american express is proud to be the founding partner of small business saturday. a day where you get to return that love, because shopping small makes a big difference. so, on november 25th get up, get out, and shop small.

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time for tonight's last word. >> you have a badge of honor, if that's what it is, in that you were one of the first tv political pundits, if you don't mind that term -- >> i'll take it. >> -- to be attacked by the president, before he was the president, this was in 2015. "i hear that dopey political pundit lawrence o'donnell, one of the dumber people on television, is about to lose his show -- no ratings, too bad." and then this is even better. "i heard, because his show is unwatchable, that lawrence has made many false statements last night about me. maybe i should sue him?" >> that's my space in twitter history, i'm the first person, i think the only tv person he threatened to sue on twitter. >> and i'm next. now -- he won't even tweet about

me. >> that's fascinating. it's fascinating that he won't tweet about you. what do you have to do to get him to tweet about you? you haven't gone far enough. >> say something nice about him. >> i guess so. breaking news, new nbc news reporting on jared kushner failing to disclose outreach from a putin ally to the trump campaign. plus the white house on defense today as the president chooses to weigh in on al franken but refrains from condemning roy moore. the president says he'll hold off on allowing elephant trophies to be brought into the u.s. "the 11th hour" on a friday night begins now.